Simple utility for encoding and decoding files to binary

FileEncoder.java

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.util.Base64;

/**
 * Created by Paul on 6/25/2015.
 * Encodes and decodes files to and from binary format.
 */
public class FileEncoder {

    /**
     * Encodes a file to binary.
     * @param fileName the path to the file
     * @return an encoded byte array.
     * @throws IOException
     */
    public static byte[] encodeFileToBase64Binary(String fileName)
            throws IOException {

        File file = new File(fileName);
        byte[] bytes = loadFile(file);
        return Base64.getEncoder().encode(bytes);
    }

    /**
     * Decodes a file from binary.
     * @param fileName the path to the file.
     * @return a decoded byte array.
     * @throws IOException
     */
    public static byte[] decodeFileFromBinary(String fileName) throws IOException {
        File file = new File(fileName);
        byte[] bytes = loadFile(file);
        return Base64.getDecoder().decode(bytes);
    }

    /**
     * Loads a file as an array of bytes.
     * @param file the file to load.
     * @return an array of bytes representing the contents of the file.
     * @throws IOException
     */
    private static byte[] loadFile(File file) throws IOException {
        InputStream is = new FileInputStream(file);
        long length = file.length();
        if (length > Integer.MAX_VALUE) {
            // File is too large
        }
        byte[] bytes = new byte[(int)length];
        int offset = 0;
        int numRead = 0;
        while (offset < bytes.length
                && (numRead=is.read(bytes, offset, bytes.length-offset)) >= 0) {
            offset += numRead;
        }
        if (offset < bytes.length) {
            throw new IOException("Could not completely read file "+file.getName());
        }
        is.close();
        return bytes;
    }

}